Even today the gender gap is alive, but fortunately there are women who have broken through the glass ceiling and marked their presence worldwide

Around half of the world’s population is female, but no one could judge that by simply looking at the technology sector across the globe. Tech has always been a predominantly male industry with a few iconic male entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg.

Even today the gender gap is alive, but fortunately there are women who havebroken through the glass ceiling and marked their presence worldwide. Moreover, big global firms such as Apple, Google, Facebook are hiring women 238 per cent faster than men at regular as well as high-level positions.

The world is growing and so is “She”. Over the recent years, many powerful leaders around the world especially the women have succeeded in establishing themselves in the tech industry. Claiming 10 spots on the list, these professionals continue to be the face of success in the existing male dominant tech culture. In 2015, women made up 25 per cent of computing-related occupations out of which 16 per cent were white, 5 per cent were Asian, 3 per cent were black/African and the remaining 1 per cent were Latina/Hispanic.

Also read: Women tech founders need to become thought leaders, and here are key reasons why we need to get rid of subconscious biases

Why do women leave tech?

• Almost around 30 per cent of the women blame working conditions. For example, long working hours, low salary and of course, no opportunity for career progression.

• Another 27 per cent put it down on work-life balance. They say “they do not have enough time for their families” and there is too much travel involved.

• The remaining ones leave a tech role due to loss of interest in the job or problems with company environment.

Things are changing, though. The following post explores a few modern, forward-thinking businesswomen who are striving hard to reshape the entire tech industry. So here’s a toast to the inspirational women that made my list of tech leaders who aren’t just admired executives but also experts in this digital era.

#1 Jessica Naziri, TechSesh

Jessica Naziri is the CEO and founder of TechSesh, a website that provides information on stylish wearable tech, tech tips, women in technology, gadget and app reviews. The main objective of her career is to demystify technology and make it more accessible to the average person.

Besides, she is also a technology expert, content strategist, and a strong media personality. With the help of her expertise, many start-ups and tech companies have shown up and reached the niche markets. Jessica is also known as a longtime influencer who has strong young women following especially those who are passionate about both style and technology. With appropriate strategy development and brand positioning, she nails down in comparison to other influencers.

#2 Gail Carmichael, Shopify

Gail is currently the external education team leader at Shopify, an e-commerce company headquartered in Ottawa that develops software for online stores and retail POS systems. They simply aim to make the experience of learning computational thinking and computer science better for everyone. Their projects are designed on the basis of Policy, outreach and diversity, degrees and apprenticeships, and academic research, etc.

It may quite interest you to know that she also helped co-found the Carleton Women in Science and Engineering and is passionately devoted to sharing her joy of technology and computer science with girls and women across the world.

#3 Robyn Forman, Zoomdata

Robyn is Vice President of Marketing for Zoomdata, a Virginia-based data visualization and analytics company founded in 2012. They create industries fastest visual analytics for Big Data problems. Robyn Forman previously worked as Vice President of Global Marketing for Searchmetrics. She can be considered as a B2B technology marketing executive who has experience with a wide range of company models and sizes.

#4 Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX

As President of SpaceX, Gwynne handles all the day to day operations for the company. Her roles and responsibility incorporate overseeing more than 40 upcoming launches and preparing a next-generation Dragon spacecraft for its first trip to Mars in 2018. Previously, she worked at Aerospace Corporation and was director of Microcosm’s space systems division. I must say she is the real deal though.

Also read: e27 Discussions: Are women-in-tech events enough to solve gender issues in the industry?

#5 Priscilla Chan

She is an American philanthropist and pediatrician and the wife of the co-founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. She’s also the first lady of Facebook who is running the day-to-day operations of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), the philanthropic investment company she created with her husband in late 2015. Through CZI they mainly focus on improving industries like education, medicine and even the criminal justice system.

#6 Angela Ahrendts, Apple Retail

Angela often describes her career as three decades in fashion but she has incredible insights into the crossroads between fashion and technology. She works as Senior Vice President at Apple Retail, where she’s using her experience and success with digital marketing to help make Apple more fashionable.

#7 Amy Hood, Microsoft

Amy, the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Microsoft, strongly leads the tech firm’s worldwide finance organization. You will also be interested in knowing that she was responsible for the financial aspects of Microsoft Office 365, SharePoint, Exchange, Dynamics ERP and Dynamics CRM. Further, in this role, Amy was involved in the company’s successful acquisitions of Skype and Yammer.

#8 Tiffany Poeppelman, LinkedIn

After earning her Master’s in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at Northern Kentucky University in 2010, Tiffany went on to work at Google UK and is currently positioned as a senior sales performance consultant at LinkedIn. Her key role is to identify areas for improvement and development needs for over 200 sales staff members. She also speaks at LinkedIn and external events on the subjects of Personal Branding and Bridging Science & Practice.

And the list goes on….

Conclusion

People on the list show there are big opportunities for women in tech. As the companies keep on recruiting from the talent pool, the number of female leaders will keep on growing. As a result, the glass ceiling is starting to disappear.

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Rakesh Patel as the Marketing Manager and Technical Writer at eTatvaSoft, a mobile app development company. He’s an avid blogger and relishes writing about various buzzing technology trends. His idea of writing is to spread derived knowledge of the latest technologies through her online contribution amongst tech geeks and tech learners.

The views expressed here are of the author’s, and e27 may not necessarily subscribe to them. e27 invites members from Asia’s tech industry and startup community to share their honest opinions and expert knowledge with our readers. If you are interested in sharing your point of view, submit your post here.

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